Smartphone Drawing Technique

All the paintings in this book are based on a technique that I have developed in the past: I made free hand drawings only from a direct view (without a photography) using a digital pen directly on my cell phone screen, usually Samsung Note 4 or Note 8. This method is named Digital Free Hand or in short, DFH. During the drawing stage, I almost do not look at the screen. This creates a direct eye contact between the subject been drawn and my hand without mediation of my thoughts. In addition, the availability of the phone also allows me to pull it out of my pocket and to draw an instant event that I like. My studio is located in my shirt pocket.

His works are both complex and simple, fast and precise, quick but detailed, schematic and deep. The free pen strokes on the phone’s screen and the thin lines provide his illustration with a light, airy look.

… Michael’s unique technique and language deepen the special connection between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and create a bridge between them, to the point that they sometimes seem to be one city.

The author, Michael Slatkine, is a painter and doctor in physics who shares his time between painting and science. The colorfulness and light in his paintings drew on his childhood in East Africa. In recent years he has developed a Digital Free Hand Drawing technique using a phone screen. For the past two years, Michael’s smart phone has been used to document six cities around the country through 600 drawings.